'Killer' husband is finally arrested 19 years after teacher wife's murder as nanny he ran off with turns on him

Daily Mail​

26-05-2025

Nearly 20 years after a former teacher and mother-of-three was found shot dead at the sports park she operated with her husband, police say they have found her killer.
Jon Worrell, 58, was arrested in Missouri on Tuesday and was charged with malice murder, felony murder, conspiracy to commit murder and aggravated battery in the September 20, 2006 death of his wife Doris, 39, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced this week.
They said the big break came in April, when investigators traveled to Costa Rica and spoke with the family's former live-in nanny - with whom Jon apparently pursued a relationship following his wife's death.
His arrest on Tuesday - which came just two days after what would have been Doris' 57th birthday, according to WALB - marked an end to nearly two decades of investigation in which authorities pursued leads in both the United States and overseas.
Police had initially believed Doris' murder was the result of a botched robbery or was retaliation by someone who had been banned from Jon's Sports Park in rural Douglas, Georgia.
They had also believed Jon was a loving, grieving husband who had fallen to the ground crying when he found his wife's body that morning, the New York Times reports.
He had told officers at the time that he left the sports park at around 9.40am to run errands while his wife stayed back to clean - and when he returned at around 11.15am, he found she had been shot dead.
But authorities with GBI and the Coffee County Sheriff's Office now say they are confident Jon set up the murder amid marital issues - some of which were apparently caused by his 'inappropriate relationship' with their nanny, who was just 18 years old at the time, Jason Seacrist, the lead agent on the case for GBI said at a news conference.
Authorities claimed Jon worried a divorce would cause him to lose his children - and decided to try to find someone to kill is wife.
The murder was committed in an area of the park that did not have surveillance coverage, according to FOX 5.
Their nanny, Venezuelan national Paola Yarberry, was also seen on surveillance footage working at a different section of the park.
She is not considered a suspect in Doris' murder - and it remains unclear who may have fired the fatal shot.
Two employees of the sports park were charged with being conspirators to her murder in 2008, but the case was dropped weeks later for lack of evidence.
Shortly after, Seacrist said, investigators first learned the Worrells were having marital problems and began to suspect Jon may have been more involved in the murder than he initially let on.
But around that time, Yarberry was arrested for living in the United States illegally, and spent months at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center before she was deported back to Venezuela.
A district attorney in Georgia at the time tried to protest her deportation, saying he believed she was withholding information crucial to the murder investigation, the Times reports.
Still, Yarberry was sent out of the United States - and soon Jon moved his family to Florida and then to Cosa Rica, where Yarberry joined them.
There, police say, they raised the three Worrell children and ran an ice-selling business as investigators in Georgia kept tabs on them.
Eventually, they learned that the couple had broken up and Jon moved back to the United States.
At that point, investigators reviewed the case again and traveled to Costa Rica, where they said Yarberry provided them with information that corroborated evidence the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had collected over the years.
'This case was never forgotten,' Sheriff Fred Cole insisted.
'And while the road has been long and often frustrating, we never gave up. Justice delayed is still justice.'
Worrell was arrested Tuesday at his home in Mayfield, Missouri, north of Kansas City. He waived extradition to Georgia and arrived at the Coffee County jail late Thursday.
He was denied bond the next day.
Doris' sister, LeAnn Tuggle, thanked investigators for their persistence at the news conference on Friday.
She recalled her sister as a gifted artist who worked as a teacher and an interior designer before she became a stay-at-home mom.
Tuggle also noted she agreed to let the Yarberry live at her home because the young woman had nowhere else to stay.
'Sometimes she was too kind for her own good,' Tuggle said, explaining that Yarberry 'did not have a place to stay.
'She was by herself. She was about 14 or 15 years old and my sister said "Sure, you can stay on our sofa,"' Tuggle recounted.
'Well the nights on the sofa got longer. She stayed longer,' the grieving sister said, noting that Doris 'being kind is ultimately what caused her death.'
She added to WALB that she now hopes Jon's arrest will lead to family reconciliation.
'One day they'll see what I'm saying now and hopefully, we can be together again,' she said of Doris' three children.
'There won't be any hard feelings. We've missed them, we've prayed for them and we want to see them.'